The Low-Screen Road Trip, Part 4: A Play-by-Play
Hop in, friends!
If you’ve ever wondered what a no-screen road trip looks like, or wondered if your no-screen road trips are “normal,” then look no further. Every road trip looks different, of course, but on our most recent adventure — from Raleigh, NC to Jekyll Island, GA — I wrote down what happened minute-by-minute to pull back the curtain a bit. Yes, friends, today’s newsletter is bringing you with us for every paint-by-sticker applied and popcorn bowl consumed (and there were a lot). Climb on in and let’s go!
In case you missed it:
Part 1: Why
Part 2: What to Do
Part 3: Where to Stop
9:25am With the car packed and seatbelts buckled, we lean into the middle of the car, stack our hands, and let out our family road trip cheer: 1-2-3-GO-TEAM-THOMAS!! We may be 25 minutes late getting out of the driveway because the bikes took longer than expected to load (always), but we’re on our way.
9:32am John glides to the front entrance of Target and I hop out.
9:38am I hop back into the front seat with swim diapers and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (John’s very favorite road trip snack, which I should have remembered to add to the grocery list earlier in the week but did not).
9:49am We’re on the highway heading South, and the kids request their dry erase BINGO boards1 — a new addition to our activity arsenal. I fill them out and hand them back, then turn on Spotify’s Happy Spring Mix. Annie (2) begins scribbling wildly, earnestly covering every inch of her board with marker.
10:17am Everyone’s done with BINGO. It did not last as long as I thought it would. Shep (5) starts in on his paint-by-sticker book, June (8) pulls out her learn-to-draw-horses book and sketchbook, and Annie requests her sketchbook, too.
10:27am All is quiet, so I take the opportunity to check Instagram and email on my phone.2 I try to keep my own phone use in the car to a minimum, as it seems only fair, but since I know I won’t want to take time away once we’re actually on vacation and I didn’t check anything this morning before we left, I go for it.
10:46am Annie’s done and wants a snack, and then everyone wants a snack. I scoop Annie and June bowls of popcorn, hand peanut butter crackers to John, and pass goldfish back to Shep. There are several rounds of refills. I realize I forgot a chip clip for the giant bag of popcorn. (Oops.)
11:02am I switch to a playlist of Beatles favorites. June’s finished her drawing and is looking out the window — we’re passing through some tiny Southern towns, so there’s lots to look at.
11:06am June asks me to read A Little Princess, our current read-aloud. Everyone’s into it, even though only June and I have been reading it at night and we’re already halfway through the story.
11:12am Brief pause to get Annie’s Gabby’s Dollhouse Color Wonder pad from her bag. She begins tearing through the sheets with minimal marks on each one, which pains me, but at least she’s happy and quiet?
11:32 John is apparently over A Little Princess, and pops in his earbuds to listen to a podcast.
11:37am Brief pause to dig Annie’s Gabby’s Dollhouse figurines out of her bag. (Currently in a big Gabby phase.) Shep finishes his third paint-by-sticker of the trip and moves on to his sketchbook and markers.
11:55am I put down A Little Princess after two chapters and the younger kids request audiobooks of their choice. We listen to Make Way for Ducklings, Go Dog Go, Bad Kitty, and some of Ratatouille on the car speaker, all of which we have access to from our Yoto cards. June opts to put on her headphones and listen to some of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets via an old iPhone.
12:14pm With Ratatouille rolling, I cautiously pull out Our State magazine and begin reading, twisting around periodically to hand various figurines to Annie.
12:29pm More peanut butter crackers to Annie and Shep.
1:02pm Annie is sorting through her Gabby drawings. Shep has his sketchbook out again.
1:10pm Annie back to figurines and singing to herself.
1:15pm June turns off HP and just looks out the window, then hands Annie her sketchbook and markers when she asks. (And again when she drops them, multiple times. Bless it.)
1:19pm Everyone’s getting a little restless, so I close my magazine (3/4 of the way through, not bad!) and switch from the audiobook to music, taking requests. (First request, from Annie: “horse song.” At a loss, I press play on “She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain,” which she accepts.)
1:22pm Popcorn to June, which makes Annie request some, too. I’d rather not give it to her since she already had the crackers and I want her to eat lunch, but decide it’s worth it to keep the peace. I get it—my stomach is growling, too.
1:29pm Shep puts his sketchbook away and requests a reading from “Jack and Annie,” his current nightly read-aloud. We’re on book 28, and I read three chapters in quick succession. Naturally, Annie requests a reading of The Circus Ship next, which I oblige. Me reading aloud is one of the most sure-fire ways to keep everyone happy, so it’s good for the tail-end of a leg.
1:49pm The final countdown to lunch! Google Maps says there’s five minutes left, so we all ooh and ahh over the Spanish moss outside our windows to pass the time.
1:54pm We arrive at Lowcountry Produce on the outskirts of Beaufort. We’ve been to Jekyll before and this is one of our favorite stops on the way. Stopping here meant delaying lunch longer than we normally would have (due to our late start), but we decided it was worth it for the yummy food and space to run around. We gather trash from the car and head inside to order.
2:57pm We’re back in the car. Lunch was delicious, with only the minor hiccup of Annie falling in a mud puddle in the adjacent field. She found this upsetting, but we wash her shoes in the sink, change her outfit, and soon all is almost as good as new.
3:01pm We would reallllllly like Annie to take a nap, so even though she makes many requests (for her sketchbook, a book, figurines), I mostly respond with, shhhh, time for sleep. Shep pulls out his sketchbook and markers.
3:08pm We stop for gas.
3:19pm Annie’s still alert, but I’m feeling sleepy.
3:25pm Annie fake crying when I refuse to give her a book.
3:28pm June hands Annie her blanket and stuffie and Shep puts away his sketchbook.
3:35pm The big kids both have their eyes closed, and apparently soon after so do I. John reports that Annie finally succumbed at about 3:45.
4:09pm June loudly declares we have one hour left and I wake up. So does Shep.
4:21pm June pulls out her sketchbook. Shep’s antsy, asking when we’ll arrive, which has me worried he’ll wake Annie.
4:40pm Shep sketching again.
4:49pm We get off the highway and Annie wakes up peacefully — not always a guarantee, so the whole car is grateful for that. I put away my magazine with just a few pages left to go.
4:51pm The kids request the Animal Freeze Dance song for their stuffies to dance to. There’s a wild dance party in the back and lots of song requests flying at me.
5:05pm We pull up in front of our hotel, happy to have arrived at our destination in one piece and good spirits. Hands in the center, we bookend the trek with one final road trip cheer :)
Friends, I hope you enjoyed road trip month here at The Connected Family! Low- and no-screen road trips are a small and totally optional part of living a connected life, but one we’re passionate about. Whether you took away a roadside stop strategy, a new activity, or simply encouragement to give it a try on your next vacation, I’m glad you’ve been along for the ride.
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This is really great! Love how intentional (and realistic) you are about how to make this work. All the snacks! I’m sort of curious about a version like this - not minute by minute, but how the week lays out with less screen time. I’m also thinking about summer right now and how we want to handle the time if you have any future ideas!
Ba ha this is so real. I'd love to read something similar from my mom when we roadtripped across America to national parks from NC with 5 kids in a van! It was crazy times.
One thing we really love to do that you didn't mention (it does require a lot of participation from adults in the car too - even me, who is almost always the driver!) is car games like the license plate game or the ABC game where you look for the alphabet on road signs. My kids get carsick super easy so we're pretty limited as to activities beyond music so games that involve looking out the window even on soulless I-95 are very handy! They are also classics from my childhood. That BINGO game might be a good sweet spot though that doesn't require too much reading in the cart.